Economic Democracy

Restated for the 21st century, "socialism" simply means that a people's judgments about its own economic life come before the supposedly iron rules of the international economy. It would be fair to call it "economic democracy." The condescending view of the Greeks as somehow not understanding economic reason and the direction of history writes off this kind of economic democracy as infeasible, archaic, and probably senseless. Syriza's government has a chance to reverse the lens. Economic democracy (or, as Syriza calls it, socialism) is politics that puts human needs first and accepts that market-based destabilization, impoverishment, and humiliation are not natural disasters or comeuppance for bad behavior but forms of political violence.

Can we afford to disenfranchise swaths of the population, amputating them from well-being and a productive existence from which stem self-esteem and self-reliance? The key to what ails us is like the key to Hugo's automaton, one shaped like a heart.